The dome

Kind of bumming tonight. I found my niece's blog site. I really wasn't surprised, but I didn't know that she drank and smoked pot so much. She will be 18 years old in 25 days, and graduates from high school in about four months. Supposedly, she doesn't do those things in my house. That explains the lighters I keep finding in the dryer with her clothes. I am glad she lost her license. At least from now until September she has almost no chance of getting a DUI.

Her report card was four B's and two A's. Not at all bad. She can be a very sweet, caring girl. Right now she is going through the normal teenage "I hate the world" and "Don't trust anybody over thirty" stage. She has quite a few wild ideas about how the government should be and why pot should be legalized. She said that it isn't physically addicting. Well, it is psychologically addicting. And, the alcohol. My God, the drinking she and her friends are doing. I can't be a hypocrite. I drank when I was seventeen. Not in that magnitude, but I did it. I did not do any drugs. Not bragging, they just were not available to me. I probably would have done them, as unhappy as I was around that age.

I will take things one month, one week, one day at a time after she turns 18 and after she graduates. According to her on-line journal she doesn't like staying here (she called me a bitch many times in the blog), so maybe she will leave. Poor thing, is in for a rude awakening.

She is getting her own money from Social Security, now. I showed her the cell phone bill. She went way over her minutes. She gave me $80. I hate to tell her, but that was just for the overage. She didn't even realize that she has to pay for the use of the cell phone every month. That in itself, is $35.00. I know what she will say "I thought it was $20.00 a month." Yes, dear - but they soak you in taxes (as in county, state and federal) and then there is product guard (a.k.a. insurance). Welcome to the REAL world! She thinks she hates the system now, just wait.

I plan to have her drug tested like two days before she turns eighteen. I don't think I have any rights afterwards. But, she is living in my house, so maybe I do. I will ask my counselor on Monday. When (not, if) the test comes back positive for drugs, I will tell her that she needs to move on after she graduates. When she moved in with me, I told her no drugs or drinking, that I would have her drug tested whenever I wanted. I did once, all came up negative for any drugs. Of course, that was about three years ago.

I guess I can chalk this up to rehearsal for my daughter. We shall see.